[Cshelton]

Is that really the biggest reason for forest being removed?

Are there issues with raising cattle on land with a trees spaced maybe every 10 feet or so? Does it have to do with herding the cattle? Feeding the cattle? Those I feel can be solved with technology, specifically IoT/Drones/Autonomous Bots.

It seems to me, if every livestock pasture in the world has trees every 10 feet, maybe less, it could have a pretty big impact. Combine the Apple orchard with the cattle grazing land. Use technology to efficiently operate both.

Edit: And speaking of cattle. I wonder if we can literally strap something onto the back of a cow that would be able to capture methane, burn the bio-mass, and collect everything to be retrieved later on and used/buried.

[dharma1]

I don't think you need fart bags, cows fed seaweed emit significantly less methane -https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-eating-seaweed-can-help-c....

Cattle is one main reason, second one is clearing forest for industrial agriculture like soybean and palm oil plantations. Third one is logging for wood products.

Essentially they are all because of overpopulation and massively increased demand for these products.

[seveneightn9ne]

Don't forget that the main use for the soybeans is cattle feed.

[dakna]

Combining trees and livestock has been done for centuries and is called Silvopasture:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvopasture

[seveneightn9ne]

It's the feed for the cattle that takes up the most space, and that is directly replacing rainforests.